Archive for May 6th, 2014

There’s no disputing that upon implementing cloud servers, physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators will be able to store and access patient information more easily than before. Although such an approach enables them to develop treatments for specific customers, IT professionals and government officials believe care facilities need to improve their security before progressing to the cloud.

Nurses and doctors accessing patient information.

A number of cloud solutions offer expanded data protection; however, the current state of many electronic health records systems is lackluster, at best. Data flowing between hospital PCs and mobile devices opens new avenues — creating an environment hackers could potentially exploit to steal sensitive personal health information.

An official security warning
According to Reuters, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently informed health care providers their cyber-security infrastructures were unsatisfactory compared to other industries. Although cyber criminals have been known to attack the retail and financial sectors, they could also use electronic records containing insurance and payment information to gain access to bank accounts, personal addresses, phone numbers, and other data.

Reuters obtained a private notice sent to hospital administrators criticizing their lax network defense programs. Issued earlier this month, the memo did not mention the Healthcare.gov breach, which has been criticized by professionals for numerous security flaws. It further implored recipients to contact the FBI in the event any breaches occurred.

The source stated that criminals typically favor health care information because it takes longer for victims to realize that any intelligence has been stolen. Although they often don’t leverage the information itself, hackers often sell such data on the black market. To deter infiltration attempts, some hospitals have invested in cloud infrastructure featuring applications that encrypt data as it flows through the networks.